Lying In Wait
by webdlfan
Summary: From Lilymoonlight and myself ... when lights went out at the end of season 5, our characters were left lying face down on the floor. This is their story as they wait for the lights to come on and season 6 to begin.
1. I Spy something dark

_Once upon a time, at the beginning of the Summer of 2009,someone (we know who you are) named_ **Laurzz** _bemoaned the fact that the brilliant writers had left our favorite characters on the floor of a bar for the summer, leaving us with little to do with them, but find other places to let them play. Well ... as our story continues, __**Lilymoonlight**__ and __**webdlfan**__ couldn't help but continue the bemoaning, until their (our) bemoaning turned into a story. And as the story began, our favorite cast had raised their glasses to the dearly departed Jessica Angell. A car drove by, the window slowly rolled down, and a machine gun fired. Glass shattered ... and everyone dove down._

_Leaving them on a dirty barroom floor for the summer ..._

_Forgive us, we ask, if you think we lost our minds. Otherwise ... enjoy the darkness of one tragic Summer, 2009. ... Web & Lily._

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Lying in Wait

Chapter 1

_I spy ... nothing but dark._

Darkness had fallen across the bar where the eight of them had fallen. Glass had shattered, lay on them, around them, under them. The bar tender went home; the lights had been turned off. Danny lay flat on the floor, waiting. Waiting for a signal to get up, waiting for the next chapter in this storyline.

He thought of Lindsay first. His hand tightened around hers and he let out a breath of relief when hers tightened on his. He thought of Lucy next. She was safe at least. Then he thought of Flack, and of Jess, and the sadness that still surrounded them.

He didn't know who had shot at him; he only wished he could get up off this floor. It seemed like days had passed. Weeks. He thought possibly that it could be Father's Day, and here he was, without Lucy.

"Linds?" He voiced into the darkness.

"Danny? Is that you?" Finally. A smile spread across his face, and he grinned.

"Yeah, it's me. How you doin'?"

There was a sound of someone shifting about, and a crunch of glass, a few muffled 'ouches' before she answered a little breathlessly, "I'm… good. Yeah, good. Are you okay?"

"Great. Just great. Lying here in the dark unable to move, after being shot at…" He groaned, "Sorry, Linds, it's just…"

"I know. I miss her, too. Do you think …"

"What?"

"Do you think she's aging without us, or will she still be the same when we get out of here?"

"I don't know. You don't think she'll have forgotten …"

Her hand tightened again, and what felt like her body pressed up against his, "No. No, she'll know exactly who we are. Don't worry. Hey, is everyone else okay?"

He shrugged and frowned, "Don't know. Haven't heard from anyone. Didn't know if we were supposed to ask… He wiggled forward a bit, and bumped into something soft.

"Was that you, Linds?" He hissed.

"No! It was me." Another voice answered him. Adam. "Danny?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. You good?"

"Think so." A considering voice answered him, "Got glass in my beard, but, you know, could be worse I guess. Can't seem to see much though. Someone turned out the lights. Anyone else awake?"

"I been awake for days!" Danny muttered, "Could really use the bathroom…"

A groan met his ears, "Just… don't… mention that word. Please."

"Fine, sure, whatever." Danny huffed, "Listen, you got any ideas about this?"

"Me? No, hey, I'm just a humble lab tech. I don't get the ideas, you need the Doc, or Mac, or Stella for that."

"You spoken to them?" Danny strained his eyes, trying to see his colleague. Damn glasses, he thought. Who the hell had had the bright idea of removing them anyway? No wonder he couldn't see anything past his hand in front of his face.

"No, not heard a word. Hope they're okay." Adam replied, and there was more scrunching sounds, "Maybe I ought to crawl over there, see if…"

"No!" Danny reached out blindly and grabbed a handful of shirt, "You can't do that! We can't move, remember?"

"Uh… not really. Who said so?"

"I don't know! But, we just... can't. Okay?"

He could swear he could almost see Adam's face screwing up in confusion, "Okay… if you insist. Can I at least kind of, call out to them?"

Danny sighed, and rested his chin on the ground, "All right, fine. Linds? What do you think?"

"It's a good plan"

Her hair brushed against the side of his face, tickling him. He sneezed, and another voice answered.

"Danny? That you?"

"Doc? You okay? You get hit?"

There was a pause, and a rustling sound.

"Don't think so. Can't feel any blood anyhow, nothing hurts. Well, maybe my elbow, a bit. Think I hit Don in the ribs with it…"

"Yeah, you did."

"Hey! Don! Welcome back, buddy!"

Danny felt a smile spreading across his face, along with relief. The last thing he remembered before the darkness was Flack crashing to the ground shortly after Stella…

"Is Stella okay?"

"I'm okay." Her voice cut across the darkness, "Got some glass in my hair, but that seems to be it. Mac's okay, we were just having a conversation."

"I didn't hear you." Don's voice had a note of suspicion.

"There's a lot you don't hear, Don." There was a sound, a slight movement, and Danny could all but see Stella shrug. "A conversation doesn't have to be audible."

"Boss! You okay?" Danny wiggled further forward on his stomach, figuring it wasn't cheating to do that.

"Right here, Danny" Mac's deep voice answered him, "How's everyone doing?"

"So far so good." Lindsay supplied, and Danny squeezed her hand again. And wondered again where they were in time. Where Lucy was … and who the heck had planned this when they were just now really together and married. He could be home with his family. He could be home with his wife. He could—

"Anyone hear from Sid?" Hawkes asked suddenly.

"I was waiting for when you were going to remember me." A rather plaintive voice came from behind a bar stool, as far as Danny could tell, "Is it me, or is it very dark in here?"

"The lights have gone out." Danny offered, "Bartender switched them off when he left. Can't see a thing."

"How long we been here, Mac?" Hawkes spoke up after a few moments of silence.

"Any ideas anyone? Stell?"

"Sorry." She replied, "Lost track of time lying here in the darkness. Kind of reminded me of another time and place." Her voice sobered. There was another sound then, which, to Danny, sounded very much like his boss laying a comforting hand on a shoulder.

He cleared his throat, and decided he needed to do something to rally the team.

"So…" He shuffled forward a little further, stopping when he bumped into something again, and provoked an exclamation from Flack, "Anyone in for a game of 'Eye spy?"

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_Alas, our fair readers. Tis not our fault. If anything you should ponder who the pawn is in this game ... the characters, the actors or the viewers. Someone's playing a very deadly game._

_Ha ha ha ha ha._

_Or in other words ... we've got a theme going here. We shall continue. Soon._


	2. Six detectives, a labrat and a mortician

_So, with a great response and support from their readers, Lilymoonlight and Webdlfan decided they must continue …__With uncertainty and fear plaguing the minds of our characters, return with us now into the darkness …_

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Lying In Wait 2

_Six detectives, a labrat and a mortician walk into a bar ... _

Flack lay there in the dark. Glass prickled against his skin, just painful enough to remind him that he was alive. They had come to the bar to celebrate Jess, to celebrate her life. He'd shown up only because he couldn't not show up.

But instead of a celebration of life, it was dark. Time had passed without any consideration to their predicament.

He had no idea how many days had gone by. He felt the same today as he had when the lights went off. Numb. Distant.

_Lifeless._

He began to wonder if maybe this was his life now, without Jess. If in reality he was moving from day to day, doing his job and this numbing darkness was all he could see, all he could feel.

Then he heard Danny say Lindsay's name, and he knew he wasn't alone in this darkness. The way he said it, the way his voice always softened when he talked to her or even talked of her. It had been that way from the beginning with Danny and Lindsay.

Not so with Jess. She'd bantered, he'd blushed. For whatever reason, he always felt a little out of step with her until it had just started to be natural. Just natural between them.

His friends, his coworkers, they'd pulled him here to this unending night. But he didn't blame them; he knew they'd only been trying to help.

Flack listened to them as they began to speak out, to prove they still lived. First Danny, than Lindsay. Adam. Hawkes.

Beside him, Hawkes moved around. Was he hit? Danny had asked.

_"Don't think so. Can't feel any blood anyhow, nothing hurts. Well, maybe my elbow, a bit. Think I hit Don in the ribs with it…"_

Flack suddenly felt the bruise, grimaced against it. He hadn't really felt anything in so long. "_Yeah_," he murmured, "_you did._"

_"Hey! Don! Welcome back, buddy!"_

Don closed his eyes. He didn't want to be back. He just wasn't sure he had a choice. The glass that had just felt like little prickles suddenly seemed to cut into him. His heart, numbed, began to feel pain. Fear. Loss. Grief.

He didn't want to feel.

Still he listened and with each voice he heard there was some relief. Not much, but some.

Stella, then Mac. Finally Sid.

Still he waited. He wasn't sure why he waited.

Oh. He was waiting to hear Jess's voice.

Suddenly a hand smacked up against him, shifting a piece of glass which dug into his side and he cursed. He felt it this time.

_"Anyone in for a game of 'Eye spy?"_

It hit him--somewhere deep, to hear Danny's attempt at humor. He snorted. "Seems like we're more in the position for twister. _The movie version._"

"We could always do bad movie impressions," Lindsay offered.

"You just say that because you're saying my impressions are bad," Danny countered.

"You know, maybe we should start trying to figure out what happened before we went down." This came from Mac.

"We were shot at," Danny muttered.

"Besides, I don't think it's up to us, Mac," Hawkes returned practically. "Until they turn the lights on, even the powers that be may be guessing, ready to change our fate. Who know what's going to happen to us?"

Adam laughed, that short chuckle that might have been more of a snort. "You know, this kind of reminds me of a joke ..."

"What?" Sid asked when no one else did, and an awkward silence was just beginning to build.

"Six detectives, a lab rat and a mortician walk into a bar ... "

'What's the punchline?" Danny asked.

"See. I don't know. Seems there should be. I guess we're just going to have to wait to find out."

There was another silence, until Danny spoke again.

"So, I guess 'I spy' wasn't such a good idea then... Anyone for bad movie impressions?"

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_Thanks so much for the reviews on chapter 1 … it was a breath of relief for me (web) though I think Lily's more comfortable in the darkness (ha ha). Just kidding. I was a little nervous about taking a different road, but my fearless partner never seemed to have a doubt. So thank you. We have five chapters in all and a little more to add to the final chapter, so it shouldn't be too drawn out. We're going to try to post quickly as in the fan world the lights have already started to come back on. Just pretend they haven't._


	3. Hide and Seek

_From darkness we last left, to darkness we return, our characters await. Time is passing for them, they know not our thoughts, how we root them on (or how you guys are awesome and have been rooting us on with your fantastic reviews). The darkness still continues to close in on our cast ... It's all closing in now. Who will be the first to break ..._

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Lying In Wait 3

_Hide and Seek_

"I'm wondering which is worse... Your movie impressions or Adam's jokes ... Both are pretty bad." Lindsay mused. Hawkes could almost see her roll her eyes. He couldn't repress the snicker.

"I'm sure we could come up with something more productive with all these degrees lying around here," there was an uncharacteristic bitterness in his voice.

"The degrees don't do you much good when you're lying flat on the floor in a pile of glass." Danny huffed.

"You could figure out how to get us out of here." He recognised Flack's sarcasm instantly.

Hawkes shifted and felt more glass crunch underneath him, and winced. There were splinters in his shirt, starting to prick through to his skin. Moving carefully, he felt around his middle and stomach. There did not seem to be any damage. None that he could feel anyhow. Yet. With all that glass and all those bullets, there had to be some injuries somewhere. It was all too good to be true that they had escaped without so much as a scratch. They seemed to have escaped anyhow. In the back of his mind, there was a shadow lurking, which was nothing to do with the lack of lights in the bar. Something was waiting for them, darkness shimmering on the edges. He could feel it.

Maybe Danny's idea then wouldn't be such a bad idea. Hawkes knew just for himself he needed something to take his mind away from dark predictions of the future.

But maybe bad movie impressions wasn't quite the thing. It seemed Flack also had some issues with that; as Hawkes brought his mind back to the current situation, he realised that his two friends were still sniping at each other.

"We can't _move_." Flack reminded him in the tone of voice that might be used to a small child.

Danny hit back immediately, "You got any brighter ideas then Flack?"

"Anything would be a brighter idea than listening to your bad movie impressions in the pitch dark. They aren't impressive in the daylight. Or suggesting _I Spy_. That hits an all time record of stupidity..."

There was a gasp from somewhere. Possibly where Hawkes guessed Lindsay was lying. And he winced. There was a whoosh of breath from Danny, and then he spoke in a dangerously quiet voice.

"You calling me stupid, huh? Or Lindsay?"

"Danny..." she warned.

"Because that is out of order, man."

"If that's how you interpret it, then..."

"Hey! That's enough you two!"

Unmistakably Lindsay's voice. Hawkes grinned; if anyone could keep Danny in order, it was his wife. That thought made him pause. Lindsay was Danny's wife. It was still taking him time to get used to the fact that Danny Messer was a married man. And a father. To Lucy. A surge of sympathy crashed through him then, realising how the two of them must be feeling at this point, being without Lucy, for however long they'd been there. No wonder Danny seemed ornery. Sid too, Hawkes realised, would be wondering about his wife and daughters. Would they be missing him? Would time be going on without them all?

Who was waiting on him at home? Why couldn't the Doc get his own girlfriend? One that would still around for more than an hour ... _he_ had a degree. A good job.

And enough of a sense of humor that he could put up with Danny.

But man. Five years was a long time. A _long_ time.

A sudden horror gripped him then as a thought inveigled his mind. What if the world passed by without them? Forgot they were there? Passed on uncaring and left them behind in a strewing of glass and confusion. What if when the lights came back, years and years had passed, and their friends and family were gone...

Further horrors assailed him then; what if the lights never came back? what if they were there forever? Hidden away, with no one looking for them? Trapped forever in a bar with Danny and Flack sniping at each other...

_Oh __…_ the tension built up, catching his breath_…_

"Guys!" He had to speak, and if his voice came out with a choke at the end, well, he didn't care then. He needed to speak and prove he was alive.

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_And so we leave them once again ... two more voices wait to speak._

_And something dark awaits them just outside their reach.  
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	4. Memory

_Once again we return to the floor of a bar, where our favorite cast of characters have spent their summer months. __They are used to questions, but even more so, they are used to doing what it takes to find answers. But here ... they are helpless.__ And so we find them, helpless. Lost. With darkness, even more so, drawing close …_

_Fall approacheth …_

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Lying in Wait 4

Memory

"Hawkes?" Lindsay answered him first. Stella did not miss the tremble in her voice as she responded to his desperate call in the dark.

She couldn't blame her. At the sound of his voice, she saw him in her own mind with his hand drawing away from his body, dripping blood. Her breath caught in her throat at the image; at the horror on the faces of the others', at Lindsay's mouth opening in a scream...

_No!_

Stella felt her body cringe. It was _she _who wanted to scream. She felt it rising to her mouth and threatening to burst out.

But Stella Bonasera did not scream. She did _not._

She felt Mac's hand on her arm, and calmed a little when she heard his voice questioning the Doctor.  
"You alright, Sheldon?"

"I ... Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. How long do they really expect you to last in the dark?"

Hawkes was fine, Stella let the news calm her somewhat. Muscle by muscle she worked to relax, first in her hands, then her arms ... slowly, concentrating on each muscle group until she'd worked her way through her body. That had to stay calm, she reminded herself, and focused on the feel of Mac's hand on her arm.

Darkness. It was only darkness.

It had only been her imagination playing cruel tricks on her in the dark as she lay on her side, feeling her muscles starting to cramp. But there was no blood on any of them. Not yet anyway.

Would it come later? Did this weird world of darkness and time temporarilly clot the blood, or did it seep out so slowly that no one noticed...

Until they died.

And as she heard the others talking around her, she understood how Hawkes had felt in his burst of panic, for suddenly, she needed to hear her own voice. To remind herself that she was still alive; that this was all real and not some fantasy dreamed up by the morbid imagination of someone controlling them all. She shivered at the idea that her life as a CSI was not her own...

"We've been here a long time,"

Her voice sounded strange and unused for a long time. She reached up as she spoke, and knocked more glass from her curls. It was an unending struggle. Her hair was full of it. As she shifted slightly more of it tumbled out and rattled on the floor. Then she felt another hand; gentle and careful as it removed a few more pieces of glass. It was Mac, she knew, and so she slid her hand across and found his jacket. It was better than nothing, and she gave it what she hoped was a comforting tug. His hand rested for a moment on top of her head, and then stroked down her hair. Stella smiled in the dark and the scream that was still inside her became less of a threat.

With Mac's hand resting on her back, she focused again on what her friends and colleagues were saying.

"Summers always seemed a lot easier before," Sid murmured. "Funny how there are always less murders on our watch in the summer. Except ... remember the summer back, what? Three years ago?"

"It was hot," Mac said.

"Very hot. We brought in a number of corpses who died from heat exhaustion," he sighed. "It was different then. So many things were different. Marty..." his voice caught on the name, and for a moment all of them sat in silence, remembering.

Sid cleared his throat. "Marty and Annabell were so happy."

"Talk about darkness," Hawkes murmured.

"Still can't believe he's the same guy we worked with," Stella said with a sigh. Still, she couldn't help but smile as she thought of the old Marty, pre-Annabell, who'd hit on her a number of times. Then he'd met his future wife, and the rest was ... hard to process. How could they not have had any inkling as to what he was doing? How had it happened? She remembered the look of devastation on Sid's face after they had arrested Marty. It had stayed with him for a long time.

She could not see his face now, she could not see any of their faces. All she could do was try and conjure them into her memory, one at a time, as if flipping cards one way, then the other, like the old childhood game of memory. Turn one memory over and take it in, never really long enough to see, to really see them as she wanted to remember them. But somehow, her memory was not working as it should; she was struggling to remember, and there were gaps. Only flashes of recall were coming back to her. There was suddenly, now she was trying to find them, very few memories of her personal life. All she could remember were events at work, cases, her colleagues. A few brief moments ... but so very few.  
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What else have I done with my life?_

Panic began to set in again, and Stella felt her breath begin to hitch in her chest. Again the feeling of being out of control and at the mercy of someone unknown wrapped round her. But she fought it and won, bringing her breathing back to normal, as Mac's hand moved from her back and covered her own hand. She wished she could at least see his face, but the certainty of his presence was more than welcome. Another thing she was thankful for on her friends' behalf was that Danny and Lindsay were in this together as well.

None of them were alone.

And it was Danny's voice that spoke again then.

"Okay, so Eye Spy and movie impressions and cards didn't impress anyone... Any takers for charades?"

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_So Pay up, that started this whole saga of summer and darkness, is re-airing on Wednesday. Hopefully, if we can get chapter 5 finished maybe we can post the final chapter on Wednesday or Thursday... a ha ha ha. No spoilers, but its really really fun in a really dark kind of way ... _

_So maybe if you review, we can get it all up sooner rather than later ... :) ... or maybe to go with the theme I should leave you with a X( or a }:p  
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	5. Charades

_And so ... as the long summer draws to a close, our cast of characters still waits and wonders._

_And fears ..._

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Lying in Wait 5  
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__The Newlywed Game for some, charades for everyone else ..._

It was odd, Mac thought, how they were all following the rules. But then rules were what ordered his life; as a marine, as a scientist, as a CSI. He understood rules. This though, this he did not understand. Face down on the floor, lying in the dark, even Danny had stayed put. Odder still was the darkness; how there was no night or day, or life outside the darkness of the bar. If the sun rose, it was blocked from their view. He had no idea how many times the sun had risen, if any. Time was another thing that had become lost.

He could only assume the bar tender had given up on the place. From the mess with the glass, the shattered windows, bullet holes and the stench of spilt alcohol. No one had made an effort to help them, or to clean up. No one came. There was no one but themselves, and were it not for the feel of Stella's hand now holding onto his, he would have felt himself the only person left in the world.

No vagrants, no one peeking in the windows. It was simply dark and quiet, save their voices.

He'd been through dark places in his life. In the marines, losing Claire.

But he'd always had his sight.

And he'd always looked for answers. With his brothers in the Corps, with Stella. With himself.

"Can anyone remember ... did anyone see anything?" he asked at last.

For a moment, it stayed silent. He listened to their breathing, wondered if he should do a roll call every so often. Someone could disappear.

And then what would they do? They couldn't look. They couldn't move.

_No._ He would not lose one of his own. Not to the darkness.

"I remember everyone falling. Sorry, Mac," Adam said first. "And the glass. All of the glass."

"Nothing else? No one saw anything? Hawkes," he turned his head, in the direction where Hawkes lay. Or was he laying? "You were facing the window. What did you see."

"I saw ... everyone raised their glasses. I was looking at how they met there, all in the middle, except ... I'm sorry, Mac."

"Stella?"

"No ... it was so fast. And ... I think maybe I wasn't knocked out. That I didn't have to wake up. I guess I was always awake. That it was dark because they turned the lights off. But I reached out, Mac. I do remember that I reached out and you were there. I guess, I lost focus for a minute."

Mac nearly laughed. There greatest strength might have been their curse that left them there alone. "We were looking at each other. I suppose our attentions were diverted in the right direction."

He wondered then, if this perpetual darkness never ended, if he could find contentment here with these people.

And he knew ... if the person who shot into the bar remained at large out in the city, then he would always have this need to find him. Them.

If only he could move.

Finally, Hawkes spoke into the quiet. "Speaking of diversions, it's awfully quiet over there on the newlywed front ..."

"Well, you know what newlyweds do in the dark." He recognised Adam's voice, and despite himself, grinned.

"Who says it has to be dark?" Sid replied from somewhere a little distance from Mac. It made him wince, and wonder suddenly if they were going to be treated to another of the ME's anecdotes. Only this time, there would be no escape...

Fortunately, Lindsay spoke up with a trace of indignation in her voice. "We can hear you, you know. Besides, what can we do when we can't move?"

"Well, I've heard newlyweds can be quite imaginative."

It was Danny who shot back this time. "What would you know about that, Adam? Got anything you'd care to share?"

"Well, there was this one time ..."

"Really Adam?" Hawkes interupted. "Are you sure this is information you want to share? The lights are going to come back on eventually."

"Are you sure about that?" Adam quipped back--but the fear was to deep. No one said anything.

There was a sound. It might have been a crazed laugh or an unbridled moment of fear. But it was the only sound Don had made since his confrontation with Danny.

"Maybe not," Adam acknoledged Hawkes' original censure. "But just because I haven't got hitched yet, doesn't mean I don't know about that sort of stuff. You don't have a monopoly on carnal knowledge..."

"Carnal knowledge? What the hell?" Danny spluttered. "Where'd you come up with that kinda' wording?"

"So maybe I'm better read than you..."

"And maybe I got more experience with the carnal knowledge itself, you know, 'cause I actually _have_ that kind of knowledge."

There was the sound of someone shifting about, and then Sid spoke again, a patriarchal tone to his voice. "Gentlemen, when you reach the age and experience of myself, then you can talk confidently about carnal knowledge. When I was..."

"Enough!" Mac surprised even himself with how loud his voice sounded in the darkness. There was an echo that rang around amongst the glass, until the echoes broke into shards and were lost.

Silence.

The pressure of Stella's hand round his increased. "It's okay, Mac," she murmured.

"No--listen." He heard it again. "That sound."

"Someone's coming," Lindsay whispered.

"It's all right," Danny murmured softly. "Whatever happens, it's going to be all right."

"It has to be," Stella acknowledged. "Mac?"

He was still listening to the sound. His body tensed, ready to move. His heart--it felt like his heart had started again.

"If we made it through this darkness, we can make it through anything."

And then it happened.

A light flashed on--blinding. He shut his eyes against it.

And heard a moan, then cry of pain...

Was it worth _to be continued..._


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